Enough already! Let's declutter

Claire Young, Calgary Herald04.26.2013

After submitting a photo of her daughter’s messy closet, Dorothy Cornwall, left, won a Twitter contest hosted by Brookfield Homes. As a result, Cornwall got to meet organizational expert Peter Walsh, right (click on the photo for our three-picture tour).Claire Young
/ Calgary Herald

The winning photo of the closet of Cornwall’s 19-year-old daughter. It was taken while the daughter was away overseas.Photo
/ Dorothy Cornwall

Oprah Winfrey greets a crowd. Walsh was a regular on her show.Calgary Herald
/ Files

The house is tidy, there are no piles of paper clogging the counters, the drawers aren’t full of odds and ends, and clothes don’t litter the bedroom floors.

While any home will look more lived-in than a show home once people and all their stuff move in, an organizational expert has some tips for preserving that general air of tidiness that permeates show homes.

Peter Walsh — Oprah’s organizational expert and a regular contributor to the Rachael Ray show — was in the city recently to present his ideas at a Get Real Live Radio evening in support of Calgary Spring Clean and WINS (Women in Need Society).

Organization doesn’t begin with great built-ins, a stack of matching baskets or even stylish lockers in the mudroom, Walsh says.

“One of the biggest problems when people buy a home, they ask what do I want ‘for’ my home. That might be I want tile floors, an outdoor shower, a big patio. It’s absolutely the wrong question,” says Walsh.

“The first question should be: ‘What do I want from my home.’ You’ll start getting answers like: ‘I want a home where I can gather my children and nourish them at meal time. I want a place where I can entertain and engage my friends. I want a place that will help nurture and develop my marriage. I want a place that’s welcoming’.”

Deciding on the vision for a home with family members, the home will begin to reflect the kind of life and living environment you want.

Every time you consider buying an object to bring into the home, from furniture to decorations, ask whether this object furthers those goals, says Walsh.

The next thing to ask yourself is whether you’re honouring and respecting the space in your home.

“We’ve all been in a relationship with someone who doesn’t honour and respect them — and we all know what that feels like,” he says.

“It’s a horrible feeling and no one wants to stay in a relationship where you’re not honoured and respected.

“It’s exactly the same with your home. If you overstuff a closet or put more books on a shelf than it will hold, or put more clothes in your closet than is reasonable, you are not honouring and respecting your space.

“What will happen is your home will turn on you like a crazy lover.”

Walsh’s last point is to think of a washing machine: finish the cycle.

“If you open something, close it,” he says.

“When you take off something, put it away. When you bring in the mail, open it and put it away. When you dirty a dish, put it in the dishwasher or wash it and put it away. When your children play with toys, put them away after. You have to finish the cycle.”

A footnote to the last point is to never use the word “later.” Procrastination just allows clutter to begin.

There are two main types of clutter we hold onto, says Walsh:

n The memory-associated clutter that we’re worried we might lose the association with if we let go of the item;

n The second is the “I-might-need-this-later clutter” — stuff held onto in anticipation of imagined futures, he says.

“If you’re moving into a new house and you’re deciding whether a piece should stay or go, go back to that question: ‘What do you want from this space, or what is your vision for this space’,” says Walsh.

That helps clarify the decision.

In support of the Calgary Spring Clean event, Brookfield Homes encouraged donations of clothing to WINS.

“For the past month, Brookfield Homes has been encouraging Calgarians to live their best life by decluttering their closets in support of WINS,” says Wendy Jabusch, vice-president of Calgary Housing with Brookfield Homes. “The community support we received was fantastic and the number of gently used clothing donations collected was truly astounding.”

Dorothy Cornwall, winner of the Brookfield Homes Twitter contest — Calgary’s Messiest Closet — entered a photo of her 19-year-old daughter’s crammed closet in the contest while she was away backpacking overseas on her gap year.

“When she gets back I want to have her room ready to go,” says Cornwall about when Cheryl Read returns to start travel industry studies at university in the fall.

Cornwall, caught in the demands of the sandwich generation, is anticipating refreshing her Southwood home by gaining control of her home’s closets and paperwork areas.

As part of winning the contest, Cornwall had an opportunity to meet Peter Walsh, as well as taking home a $500 organization prize pack including a four-hour one-on-one personal organization consultation, a $150 gift card to IKEA, a one-year subscription to Real Simple Magazine, and two tickets to the live show with Walsh.

ORGANIZING WITH OPRAH

Peter Walsh, an Australian-American, puts his master’s degree in educational psychology into practice with his observations on how to declutter and organize people’s homes and personal lives.

He was a regular guest on the Oprah Winfrey Show in the late 2000s. In 2011, he premiered his own show, Enough Already! With Peter Walsh, on OWN: The Oprah Winfrey Network.

He is also a regular on the Rachael Ray show.

Walsh has published several books on organization and decluttering, including How to Organize (Just About) Everything, It’s All Too Much, Does This Clutter Make My Butt Look Fat?, It’s All Too Much Workbook, and Enough Already!

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